Qualms
by Anonymous033
Summary: "This very special senior field agent right here, last in the line of the great DiNozzos, he's the one who got strung up by his tightie-whities." Tag to 9x02 "Restless." Two-shot; one chapter with Tony/McGee friendship and another with Tony/Ziva friendship.
1. Qualms

**Disclaimer: ... *Kidnaps Michael Weatherly's dog* ... I need somethin' here :(**

**Spoilers: Major ones to 9x02 "Restless," basically everything Tony, and a mention of Shmuel Rubenstein.**

**So, this story has two chapters :) the first is Tony and McGee and the second is Tony and Ziva, and that's important to note because there are minor elements of Tiva in here, and if you are either a Tony/McGee shipper or a Tony/Ziva hater, this might not be your fic lol. Consider yourself informed!**

**This fic is about bullying. For the most part, it isn't graphic and doesn't go too deep into the subject (which I regret, actually, but it wouldn't have fit the characters), but in case you would rather not read about bullying, you might not want to read this, either.**

**And that's it. Enjoy!**

**-_Soph_**

* * *

**Qualms**

"Hey, McGoo! Drinks?"

Tony watched as the junior field agent across the bullpen paused midway through the motions of putting on a coat, his eyes narrowing with suspicion.

"It's a school night," McGee answered slowly.

"Yeah, I know." Tony hesitated. "Just consider it a little thanks for the whole John Smith thing."

"You don't need to thank me for that, Tony."

"Uh, I want to."

"Really, it was no big deal. It just took a few—"

The senior field agent made a noise of irritation. "Could you _please _just come, McRefusal?"

"Fine," McGee sighed tiredly. "But you're paying. Make no mistake about that, Tony."

"I thought that was already made clear," Tony grumbled as he stood up, grabbing his own coat and backpack and then swinging out from behind his desk to meet the other agent.

"How'd the apologizing go, anyway?" McGee asked as they both made their way towards the elevator, and Tony opened and shut his mouth like a goldfish.

"I'm gonna need a little alcohol in me to tell you about that," he finally squeaked.

"Huh." McGee frowned at him. "That bad?"

Tony was sure his expression was enough of an answer.

xoxo

The shot of vodka had already been knocked back before the Italian-American realized that the man seated beside him (with the harmless club soda in hand) was staring at him.

"Told ya I needed the alcohol," he muttered.

"Gibbs is gonna kill you for the hangover tomorrow," McGee answered matter-of-factly.

Tony stared into his shot glass. "He won't."

"I take it he knows what happened?"

"Yep."

"What happened? Smith not accept the apology?"

"Oh, he accepted it." Tony ran a hand through his hair, watching McGee take a sip of the club soda. "Turns out he's not the one who needed it."

McGee froze with the glass in mid-air. "Who did?"

"Me."

"Huh." McGee seemed to ponder that as he lowered his club soda. "Never saw that coming."

"Well, neither did I." Tony shrugged, laughing bitterly. "You know I switched things around and didn't even realize it? This very special senior field agent right here, last in the line of the great DiNozzos, _he's _the one who got strung up by his tightie-whities. Must've been a real moment of glory for me—except I can't even remember it."

"What happened?"

"Who knows? I'm just messed up, McGee." Tony leant heavily against the bar, balling his hands into fists.

McGee shook his head, sighing into the club soda. "You're not, Tony. Bullying just messes people up that way."

"Hmm." Tony thought about that quietly for a moment before asking softly, "How bad was it for you?"

"Wasn't too horrible. Mostly passive-aggressive."

"How'd you get past it?"

McGee's eyes, hard and sombre, met his. "Do you think I'm 'past it'? You asked me this morning if I was bullied and I told you I wasn't."

"Why'd you lie?"

"'Cause there's no pride in telling a bully that you were bullied, Tony. Or maybe there is, but only if you're sure that you could best the bully."

Tony lowered his eyes. "I'm sorry, McGee."

And McGee reached out and clapped a hand to Tony's shoulder.

"I am, too."

xoxo

"You know, you made it out."

"Huh?" Tony glanced up dazedly, having fallen deep into his own thoughts.

"You made it out," his co-worker repeated. "That's all you should hold on to."

And suddenly, Tony was reminded of how very lucky he was that even though he'd done his fair share of ragging on McGee, the man was still trying to be there for him.

"Is that how you do it?" he whispered, feeling so small.

"Yeah. I mean, I'm a federal agent. There's no more kickass way of showing that bullying didn't ruin my life." McGee hesitated. "And y'know, you kind of had it worse, so you have even more of a reason to celebrate."

"But I don't even _remember _getting bullied, Tim. And I don't know when I flip-flopped it, so that means I entered cop academy either high on the knowledge that I stepped on others to get there or so low in spirits that I had to reinvent my life and forget about the original. Neither of those are a reason to celebrate—I'm wondering instead what else in my life I rewrote! Hey, maybe I didn't blow my knee out in college. Maybe I _flunked—_"

"You didn't flunk out of college,Tony," McGee interrupted sharply. "And you have the degree to prove it. Look, I don't know what part of your past is true and what isn't, but today you learnt about one of the _worst memories _of your life—and you went back to work and threw yourself into the job until we caught the guy. So, _don't _tell me you wouldn't have prevailed. You always do, DiNozzo."

"But what's the point of prevailing," Tony objected, "if I don't know what I'm prevailing over?"

And McGee had no response.

"Yeah," Tony murmured, "that's the question, isn't it?"

xoxo

"You know, people reinvent their lives for all sorts of reasons."

"Oh, yeah? Like what?"

"Well, some people just want a new start. I'm just sayin', Tony … you wouldn't have been the first person wanting to forget about the past."

"And that makes things better, how?"

McGee sighed. "Tony, whatever you started out as, you're here _now. _You were a Baltimore cop so good at your job that Gibbs personally picked you to be part of his team. The _only _part of his team aside from himself at one point, in fact. And you're still here after all these years—that says something about you. You found your niche; the job you love and are good at. And, guess what? We love having you here. So, in case you're wondering whether your past at all affected your decisions—I don't know; maybe it did, but I have to say that I have no qualms about who you are _right now._"

Tony rubbed a hand over his mouth, swallowing the lump in his throat and lowering his gaze so that McGee wouldn't see the wetness in his eyes. "Thanks, man."

"Yeah," McGee acknowledged, tapping his fingers on the wooden counter before proposing, "you should tell Ziva, though."

Tony looked up, startled by the sudden change in topic and forgetting his tears. "What?"

"Ziva. I think she'd want to know."

Tony snorted. "You think _Ziva _would want to know I was bullied?"

"Of course," McGee said, sounding puzzled.

"You're talking about the woman who punched some guy's lights out at the mere age of eight for telling her he liked her."

"She did that?" McGee questioned, wide-eyed and momentarily distracted, before continuing dismissively, "but that's not bullying. That's her defending her honour."

"_Right._"

"Trust me. She'd want to know, Tony. She cares about you."

Tony cleared his throat. "I don't know."

"Let her care," McGee told him gently. And with that, he slid off the barstool and threw a couple of bills onto the counter. "Well, I gotta go. You actually gotta go too, if you want to be awake enough for work tomorrow, but it's your choice. Just … tell Ziva, okay? And don't get drunk before you do it."

"Roger that."

The mock salute Tony sent in McGee's direction earned him an eye-roll of gigantic proportions, but the Italian-American knew that his friend was right—Ziva just made him feel comfortable and _safe _in a manner than none others from their little hodgepodge, cobbled-together-through-shared-pain family could.

And it was reassuring that they knew him so well.

Turning back towards the bar counter, he caught sight of the bills and only then remembered that he had wanted to treat McGee to the drinks—and it turned out that the Probie had bested him, after all.

Chuckling and shaking his head, he pulled his phone out of his pocket.

If McGee had no qualms about who Tony was right now, then Tony himself had no qualms about whom he chose to spend his days with.


	2. Worries

**Disclaimer: I never did get his dog.**

**Aaand welcome to the Tiva chapter! ... Okay, so it's not really _that _Tiva, because Ziva's still with Ray here and it's not their time yet. But it's very tender :P and on that note, it ought to be put to attention that this chapter is a little different from the first one (because I'm more used to writing Tiva and because they do have more 'moments' together). So, it is mushier. :P**

**Enjoy!**

**-_Soph_**

* * *

**Worries**

The drinking establishment was dark and surprisingly empty when she arrived; it didn't take Ziva long to spot her partner seated at the bar, his head lowered and his forearms pressed tightly to his chest.

"Tony," she greeted him as she walked up to him, and he came to life with a surprised flurry of activity.

"Ziva," he returned, his grin not quite covering the storm in his eyes.

"I hope you were not waiting long for me." She settled herself onto the stool next to him, and he shook his head.

"No, I—thank you for coming, Zi. I know it's a weird hour of the night…"

"You're upset," she observed as he trailed off. _I could never _not _have come._

"Well…" He took a deep breath. "Well, okay. You know John Smith?"

"The boy you … bullied?"

He flinched. "Not exactly. It turns out he-… I went to apologize to him, and he … he told me he didn't understand why I was the one apologizing."

"Oh," she supplied, unsure of where this was going.

"I um, apparently I was this runt of a guy in school, without a mother and going through this awkward phase of being not quite at puberty and smaller than a lot of the guys in my class…" Tony took another deep breath. "And it made me an easy target."

Ziva stared blankly. "What do you mean?"

"John Smith strung _me _up on the flagpole." His words all came in a rush. "And it was all embarrassing, I mean, but whatever; I'm over it—"

"Tony."

The single mention of his name stopped him, and his gaze fixed steadily in the direction of the floor.

"Are you … pulling my leg?" she asked.

"No, I'm not," he answered hoarsely. "I genuinely thought I had been a bully until he told me that I had just been a wimp."

"You are _anything _but a wimp, Tony DiNozzo," she replied fiercely, and he seemed startled by the abrupt onset of her anger. "And do not let anyone ever tell you otherwise."

He gave her a rather lacklustre smirk. "I paraphrased."

"Well, don't." She grabbed his hand and squeezed it tightly, willing him to look at her.

And then he did, but he spoke up—his eyes a glossy sheen—before she could: "Maybe I deserved to be bullied, Ziva."

For some reason, that made all the tenseness leave her. The sentence, spoken with such earnest and wrongful belief, tore her heart into a million different pieces.

"No one ever deserves to be bullied, Tony," she answered softly, and he looked away.

"I was _so easy _a target. I mean, I cried, a lot, after my mother passed away, and then I was just away from Dad and home—and I remember all of _that, _but somehow my brain keeps convincing me that I got over it soon and that I became top-dog at the boarding school when, in fact, I was just somebody everyone else found convenient to tread over."

"Tony—"

"I should've been tougher, shouldn't I?"

She bit her lip, studying him intently.

It was still so hard to wrap her head around the idea that he'd been bullied rather than been the bully. Tony had such a loud personality; he was always just _there, _teasing and mocking his colleagues and wanting to be the focal point of a room.

Yet, in retrospect, it seemed to make sense: The senior field agent had always been gentler and more easily hurt than he let on. And he had a good heart—that, more than anything else, convinced her that he would never have taken the sport of embarrassing someone to so far a point as to decorate a flagpole with that someone.

If Young Tony had been tougher, then _perhaps _he might not have been bullied—but such a tough Young Tony would never have grown up to be the man who had her back far above and beyond the call of duty.

So, she touched his cheek and said, "You are already as tough as you need to be, Tony."

He laughed bitterly. "Not as a preteen."

"You had had a rough life."

"This rough life got me-… you know."

She merely squeezed his hand again, at a loss for words.

"It's coming back to me in bits and pieces," he continued. "Cockroaches in my food, lizards in my bed, having me take the fall for things I didn't do—and there's the highlight of hanging me up on the flagpole, of course. I think lovely ol' John got expelled for that, but what d'you know? I don't remember."

"Oh, Tony," she breathed, and it made his eyes snap to hers.

"And that's my life," he concluded, his lips pressing into a hard line. "Turned out to be more tragic than we imagined, huh? Guess my autobiography will be a bestseller, after all."

She frowned at the dismissive joke, shaking her head. "Tony…" she began, "I am … sorry about what I said and did this afternoon."

"And what did you say and do?" he asked casually, the barest hint of grimness in his features.

"I … I called you out on something you did not do—even though I did not know it at the time—which had nothing to do with me. I should have stayed out of your business—"

"Nah," Tony cut in. "I call you out on your crap and you call me out on mine; that's the way we roll."

"But I think things should change…"

"I think…" Tony started, "that we are full of sharp jibes, but at the end of the day that's … what we are. And if things were to change after this, then I wouldn't know where we stand anymore."

She paused with her brow furrowed, trying to figure out what he meant by his words, when she took notice of his pained expression. The conclusion came to her in a flash.

He was worried that she would _pity _him; would think less of him now that he had revealed some of the demons he had long repressed. He was worried that she would treat him like a victim after this.

And that, in turn, pained her immensely because he was so much more of her hero than he would ever know.

Inhaling deeply, she said, "I think I want things to change." She saw him open his mouth to speak, but stopped him with a raised hand and continued, "I want them to change, so that I could acknowledge freely the good man you are. You do not deserve to wonder, DiNozzo. You deserve … to know that I would not have you any other way."

He looked at her, his expression inscrutable, as she waited with bated breath for the response her honesty would result in.

In the end, she thought he surprised them both when he tightened his grip on her hand and pleaded, "Promise me you won't let me lose myself again, Ziva."

And she found herself blinking furiously as she leant forwards to press a light kiss to his forehead.

"I _swear,_" she promised.


End file.
